The Questory of Root Karbunkulus - Quill (19 page)

“Oh.” Root was not impressed in the
least.

The Sage Mother turned to Festa. “Eltaprin
ist depruva.”

Festa looked at his wife who nodded. He
glanced at his daughter and then at Dwyn still sitting on the
floor. His teeth grit. He breathed like a winded stallion. “Oma.”
He said at last.
Fine.
He stepped from the glare of the
offence into the calmer waters near his wife.

“They’re going to let Fawn decide on a
punishment.” Lian whispered to Root.

The room held its breath while Fawn waved the
swords away and instructed the guards to allow Dwyn to his feet. A
part of her, the small part wanted revenge and had already
envisioned Dwyn standing alone in nothing but his skin while she
and her girlfriends teased and flicked at his dignity. Perhaps then
he could see what it was like. But then she saw Dwyn winning them
over, rising to the occasion with stunts of charm, a wiggle here, a
dance there. These were but games and not the way of her soul. The
larger part of her. The part of her that was claiming its throne
for the first time.

Dwyn had risen and faced her, the expected
sparkle of mischief in his eyes. Already leaning deep into his
charm. She suspected it was an old standby that worked every time
with other girls. But to Fawn this was not about Dwyn. She bunted
his arrogance far away into a field of nothingness. She walked
closer to him and locked her deep dark eyes upon his. This was
about her. A Tribal Queen. A Seer. A young woman of ancient
blood.

Dwyn looked back at Fawn. His eyes jested and
shrugged sheepishly. Boys will be boys he offered in his glance,
awaiting the coy aversion of her eyes. The win. But the girl did
not budge. The pools of her eyes stayed with him, searching for
something. Dwyn shifted. He smiled. A mischievous cherub. Surely
the girl could see his innocence. But her face gave no such slack.
And Dwyn began to feel flushed. He could see himself in her eyes.
He was a boy to her. A simple, crude boy. His own eyes flashed. Who
was she to look at him this way? She was just a girl playing
princess. He glared back at her.

Fawn would not blink.

The fight in Dwyn’s glare fell, deflated in
the girl’s calm stance. She was not battling him. What was she
doing? This time he took purpose into his search. He looked deeper
into the calm waters of this girl. And then he saw what she’d
wanted him to see.

She was not a girl at all. She was a Tribal
Queen. A Seer. A young woman of ancient blood.

It was Dwyn’s eyes that averted. To the
floor, mischief replaced by regret. He dropped to one knee. And
bowed his head. When he looked up, Fawn saw the true Dancer in his
eyes.

“Please forgive me.” He said.

The Sage Mother smiled to herself.
Well
done
. Festa nodded. Wintra’s arm wrapped in her husband’s with
a sigh.

Fawn offered her hand and brought Dwyn to his
feet. “Ashwain.” She said and in a flash the swords sliced open the
chains from Dwyn’s limbs.

“Ungara.” Festa said. “You may go.”

Root and Lian waited for Dwyn at the door. As
he turned to leave, something dropped out of his pocket. The
Tempometre remote cracked the floor and spun away into the swift
clutches of Festa. “What is this?” He inspected it.

“Nothing!” Lian ran for it, utterly
embarrassed. “It’s worthless!”

Festa held it up into better light.

“Seriously, it’s a piece of junk. We would
never even think to insult you with such…”

“You have been holding out on me.” Festa said
now scrutinizing some of Skubblenob’s intricacies.

“No, trust me, it’s…”

“I will give you the Oculus for this…what do
you call it?”

“It’s a Tempometre. Supposedly a heat
indicator for finding things. But it doesn’t work! It’s…”

“And the Pansy Path!” Festa bartered.

“No, it’s…”

“You drive a hard bargain, Valadors. Fine I
will give you the Ekladian Ruge as well.”

“But…”

“And the Snooce and the Kaleye.”

In their final farewell, the Valadors were
piled with Ekladian treasures and Festa would not hear another word
out of Lian. The Sage Mother’s laughter followed them in a whisper
through the treetops.

Hovermutts aren’t really cutout for positions
of leadership. Left alone they’re pretty much reduced to the lowest
common denominator. In this case the CowPigRodent, who had
discovered the goodies of the travel pack early on and was now
chomping and swallowing the last of them with great enthusiasm.
Obviously, Lian’s skunking defense hadn’t worked.

While Stogie, Hana and Pilsnips hadn’t fallen
so low as to chomp the unchompable (i.e. mechanical devices), the
unchompable had found their way snapping and cracking into the jaws
of CowPigRodent, who was not about to let such good edibles go to
waste.

This is how the Valadors found them. Full and
content, each to its own fireside bed, remains of bones and crumbs
and powders and thingies beneath them, the crunching and cracking
still in their teeth. CowPigRodent’s actual body was still halfway
in the Travel pack, snorting and smacking, its tail a wagging
flagpole of glee.

Lian dropped his load and ran like a madman,
screaming and yanking the beds from under them. The Hovermutts
escaped, barely, into surrounding trees. From there, even the
drooping of their tails and ears would not win Lian over. He was
way past any ‘cute defense’. So for now, at least until his normal
face color returned, they would wait in the safety of their
branched heights.

All but one. Lian turned his ire toward the
oblivious invader who was now three quarters inside the Travel
Pack.

Root and Dwyn arrived first. Root took the
legs while Dwyn took the end of the Travel Pack and together they
slowly managed to pull the union apart. CowPigRodent surfaced with
Lian’s Sea light in its jaws.

Lian yelped and was on the creature
instantly. “Stupid, dumb…!” He desperately tried to pry the teeth
apart but they were in lock down with no intention of surrender. He
grabbed his precious Sea light and pulled.

‘Tug o war’ blinked across the animal’s brain
and at once it yanked back, its tail waving even faster now.

“This isn’t a game, you stupid, ugly,
rotten…!” Lian pulled harder. The battle waged for several more
intense minutes. The angrier Lian got, the more the game pleased
the CowPigRodent. It even took to shaking its quarry, which
practically emptied Lian’s arm sockets. The creature was strong to
be sure. Surely, if this kept up the Sea Light would be ripped in
two, not to mention Lian. But neither party would yield and this
made Lian steam.

Squeak!

Uh?

Lian flew back, slimy wet Sea Light in his
grip. CowPigRodent’s ears pricked as it scanned for the location of
the curious sound. Root held the squeaky toy above her head and
squeezed again. The animal galomped over and sat at her feet with
an all too familiar sit stand sit stand tail wag dance.

“No!” she said, using the toy as leverage.
“You’re a bad….” She looked down. “…girl! Bad girl! Now you go lie
down!”

A tilt of the head. Sit stand sit stand.
Lick.

“No!” Root repeated. “Go lie down.” “Go!”
“Lie down!” ”Go!”

This went on way past anything reasonable.
Finally Dwyn just grabbed the toy and threw it as far as he could
down into the valley. The creature was gone. But leading the way
was Stogie, intent on finding
his
Squeaky-Love first.

It would be hours before Stogie and the ugly
thing would return, which suited everyone just fine for that was
how long it took to clean up and salvage what little they could of
their supplies. They couldn’t even find consolation in the many
Ekladian treasures for, of them Lian had limited knowledge and more
importantly, none were edible.

As evening fell, Dwyn molded again and took
to find food. He preferred the gentle nature of a bear with its
swift paw in a shallow river of fish. The idea of chasing and
hunting didn’t quite sit with him. Root and Lian got a fire roaring
and waited anxiously for Dwyn’s return. When he did, he was empty
handed. The river had yielded nothing and he had lost patience.
They sat for a long time, trying to ignore the rumbling and
squirming of their empty stomachs.

It was Root who remembered the Hemostylus but
this she very quickly regretted when she saw how little ink was
left.

“You used it on dresses?” Lian asked
astonished. “For who? The entire Ekladian caravan?”

“No! Just for the Sage Mother…and
Fawn…and…well, Fawn’s mother…”

“And?”

“And that’s all. There wasn’t much left to
begin with!”

“So you wasted what little was left on…on
fashion?” Dwyn chimed in, his aching stomach dictating.

“It wasn’t fashion! It was…friendship…and it
was a good thing, too or else we wouldn’t have made it out of there
alive, thanks to you, Peeping Pervert Pig!”

“We made it out just fine.”

“Because the Sage Mother liked me.”

“Well, I would too if I’d gotten a whole new
wardrobe for free!” Lian balked.

“It was
one
nightgown! Which is a
pretty good trade off for freedom, if you ask me!”

Silence punctuated the end of the
conversation. Obstinate and moreover starving, Root took the
Hemostylus and scribbled on scraps of parchment from the travel
pack’s leftovers. Soon a somewhat deformed plate of steaming
Olgabelly chops lay in front of her. She had included green peas
and mashed sweet potatoes with cinnamon syrup.

Drool fell in buckets. There was no turning
back. Minutes later, Dwyn sat down to a full roasted hen with mac
‘n cheese and Lian went fork crazy over his all time fave, Torko
potpie.

It all washed down nicely with Chorm, taking
any resent with it. And that was cause for a celebratory dessert,
wasn’t it? Root and Dwyn let Lian do the honors. He was the best
drawer of the three. A remnant of the Fuffleteez gene pool.

They were surprised and delighted by the dish
he’d managed to eke out. It was a large bowl piled high in soft
warm gingerbread chunks. This he topped in hot caramel and heaping
clouds of whipped cream.

Every mouthful rocked.

The whole world was surely jealous.

Root put what was left of the Hemostylus away
for future rationing and Dwyn was still licking the bowl clean when
Lian pulled out Road and dropped its gravelly remains on the
ground.

“Where are we and where is the port town of
Divit?” he asked.

Road did not answer. Lian couldn’t even see
its signature smiling face in the top corner. In fact, he couldn’t
even see a corner.

Oh no.

Wait, something moved. An eye? A mouth? Yes,
it was. Road’s face was slowly sculpting its way to the surface.
Except that it stopped half way.

“Good evening and thank you for…are currently
in the…exactly three hundre….town of …amenities…”

Lian tried to follow Road’s disjointed
ramblings but the map was only half showing, the other half dawning
on him to be somewhere else. Like the stomach of a stupid
CowPigRodent animal. He stiffened. “Road’s broken.”

“What?”

“It’s half missing.”

His teammates knew exactly what he meant.

They gathered round him, as if standing there
with gaped mouths would somehow fix things. They called out more
questions to the map but each time it simply sifted into more
confusion. From what little they could gather Divit could be to the
west. Either that or the notorious Twal desert where nothing
survived except vulturous reptiles that finished off the things
that didn’t survive.

“We are so hooped.” Dwyn said.

“Hang on a sec!” Root cried. “The Hemostylus!
We can draw a new Road.”

It was a great idea in theory. But in
reality, when the ink ran out after a mere four lines of the sketch
and the pen was madly shaken and tried again and nothing but a dry
etching scratched across the paper, it was a theory that totally
sucked.

And now they were plagued with guilt over the
fact that something so valuable, the very thing that could have
saved their butts had been literally wasted on whipped cream.
Mounds of it.

Root, feeling the lion’s share of blame took
to searching the area. Perhaps Road had been spilled somewhere and
could be recollected.

“You’re better off checking out that dumb
animal’s steaming piles, if y’know what I mean!” Dwyn said. “Heck
y’might even find some of our money in one.”

Root ignored him. No small feat considering
she wanted to throttle him. She kept her eyes down, praying for
success. Not only so they could have proper directions but so she
could somehow atone for the creature that she’d taken a liking to.
Maybe finding the rest of Road would relieve her teammates enough
to give it another chance.

Forgiveness had yet to arrive when, speak of
the devil, the CowPigRodent returned with Stogie at its lead. They
looked content indeed, having spent the evening searching, finding,
squeaking, stealing from each other, chomping, tug ‘o warring,
pouncing and eventually sharing the squeaky toy.

A friendship had been made.

Though not amongst the Valadors. Meaning Dwyn
and Lian.

“That thing is not coming with us!”

“She’s just a baby, Lian. She didn’t know any
better!” Root pleaded.

“Baby or not, it’s a menace and it can’t
come.”

“He’s right, Root. It’ll just slow us
down.”

“I am not leaving her here all alone.
Obviously she needs us if she came back.”

“Because you feed the stupid thing! If you
just leave it, it can learn to fend for itself. You’re not helping
it any.”

“Besides it’ll suck us dry!”

“She eats off the trees. I’ve seen her. She
just got into our stuff out of curiosity. She’s a kid!”